Private health insurance whilst on 457

[fayem]

Hi,

 

I'm looking for any advise on purchasing private health care cover for a couple whilst on 457 visa. We both have medicare but have heard that ambulance costs are not covered and we are also unsure what would be covered under medicare for anything major?? We were hoping to get something to cover dental, chiro etc claims too.

 

We have started looking for insurance policies but as we are classed as 'non residents' the companies that provide it are asking for such high premiums compared to resident prices.

 

Does anyone have a policy with a company that is reasonably priced?

 

At the moment we both have long stay insurance cover which we purchased in the UK before we came, but it will expire next month.

 

Thanks.

[RockDr]

where are you living?

ambulance cover differs from state to state. In Queensland everyone is covered automatically, in South Australia you can register directly with the ambulance service ($100 or so a year for a couple), Western Australia I think you can only get it through private health, not sure about the other states.

In SA at least, registering directly is preferable as private health only covers emergency transport, whereas the ambulance service covers any medically necessary transport.

 

reciprocal medicare covers any non-elective hospital treatment. Elective treatments are basically any non-emergency surgery that could be put off until the next day. SO for example if you were in a car accident and had major burns and breaks etc, so needed lots of surgery and a stay in intensive care, that would be covered. If you injured your knee playing football and needed surgery to fix it, that might not be covered.

 

I know some insurance companies do have hospital cover specifically for those with reciprocal healthcare, which would be cheaper than the full non-resident package. might be worth ringing up the major providers and discussing the situation. Hopefully someone else will have more details.

[fayem]

Thanks for the info. I think I will start looking for the hospital and ambulance cover only then, to run along side our medicare.

 

We are in Sydney NSW, and plan to stay here for our time in Oz.